Dept. of Natural Resources’ decision not to log this area is cause for celebration | Opinion

The mushroom cork popped across the room. Smiling friends clinked glasses. We were celebrating the Washington State Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) decision to not log lands adjacent the Elwha River.

Last August, Stegner, my German pointer-English springer and I hiked the woods that were to be logged. We returned in late September, walked through that multi-species forest, and bushwhacked through an understory rich in Oregon grape, wild berries, sword ferns and salal. I tromped — Steger bounded — in deep shade across an undulating forest floor, until we’d round a corner and windows of lapis pierced the branched canopy above.

This forest deserved conservation not because it was beautiful and diverse, or because it was ribboned with hiking and biking trails taxpayers had spent money building, although it was all that. The forest deserved protection because it was adjacent to the Elwha River.

And not just alongside the Elwha, but next to where the United States had spent hundreds of millions of our taxpayer money removing a dam in an attempt to restore historic salmon runs. For our state government then to log there, to me, revealed a lack of coordination and a casual approach to salmon recovery. As I talked with foresters, I learned DNR was exceeding requirements by not logging closer to 250 feet from the river when it could have logged as close as 170 feet. But those regulations are based on forest health today, not based on what we will need from this forest when the glacier feeding the Elwha is gone.

Then the salmon will need a dense forest canopy not only to cool the river with shade — salmon need cool water to spawn — but also so moisture that would have come from the glacier can instead be captured by towering trees that then drip it down to the understory, eventually cooling summer’s in-stream flows.

After listening to public input and reviewing the data, Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz reversed the agency’s direction. Even though a logging contract had been awarded, and trees had been spray painted indicating which were to be saved and which shorn, she canceled the contract. Those woods now will be protected with a conservation status.

“After going through the criteria, we saw that this 69 acres fits right into our goals of conserving structurally complex forests that can retain carbon and provide critical habitat,” she said.

Commissioner Franz added that climate commitment funds will be used to purchase replacement lands, so “we’re going to be able to protect and conserve critical forests while also acquiring new working forest lands that will continue to support our rural communities.”

Franz’s decision warrants popping some sparkling.

If we are to save threatened and endangered species on the Olympic Peninsula, we need to save the glacial rivers, and in an era when the glaciers are disappearing, that requires new approaches to forest management. That’s why in October I argued on these pages that DNR should cancel the contract to log along the Elwha, and why we should create two-mile-wide ecological reserves along all the Peninsula’s glacial rivers.

Thirty years from now when most of the glaciers are dying threads of thinning ice, the salmon, steelhead even orca might have a shot at surviving if we act now to ensure the glacial rivers that tumble out of the Olympics remain cool. DNR canceling the Elwha sale is our opportunity to launch that larger conservation initiative.

So, pop whatever libation you revel with, and after the New Year, let’s get started.

This story was originally published December 28, 2023 at 5:00 AM.